Interviews

DOOM 3 Game Rush Event

[Editor's Note: John is relatively new at id, and he was careful not to take too much credit for DOOM 3. Instead, he spoke very highly of the talented team of developers he works with.]
GameSpy: What was the biggest hurdle in getting DOOM 3 to feel right on the Xbox?

Root: id's a longtime PC developer. Its games have been ported to consoles a lot before, but never with this level of involvement from the original team. It shows the talent that id has, that they were able to work with the Vicarious Visions guys and squeeze DOOM 3 onto a console. It was really an uphill battle, mostly because of memory constraints. The Xbox hardware is really very capable. It's just you have so much less memory to work with.

GameSpy: What do you think of the co-op mode?

Root: id has always recognized the value of a shared game experience. That was mostly versus multiplayer before, but DOOM 3 has scenarios which really play into a more cooperative feel. We realized that a co-op mode would yield a greater experience than one player would have alone. So we did some early tests with co-op and when we saw the impact of it -- it was like we were suddenly reminded how fun that could be. Once we saw it in action, we knew we had to give it the time and effort it deserved.

GameSpy: Have you seen any secret stuff from the DOOM movie?

Root: We've seen some stills and some monster designs. Sam Winston, who is a legend in makeup and special effects, is doing that stuff. It's flattering that The Rock and Sam Winston -- that that kind of star power is getting behind an id idea. We're just geeky gamers doing what we think is cool, and it's great to see other people pick up on it.

GameSpy: How did the slower pace of this game as opposed to previous id titles affect your work as an animator?

Root: Well, since the pace is slower, and because these are all high-quality 3D bad guys and not just 2D sprites, there couldn't be as many monsters in the scene at once. That means the monsters had to be more intelligent -- and creepier -- because you only have two or three monsters who have to get the same tension and scare into the player as 50 did before.

GameSpy: Were there any animator's tricks you used to help accomplish that?

Root: Well, the monsters are all animated by hand, and I mostly do mo-cap [motion-capture]. There's a fair amount of mo-cap on the marines, the player characters. We have a healthy commitment to motion capture going forward. All the cutscenes where we used mo-cap were well received. The expansion has even more motion capture in it.

GameSpy: Being the new guy, how do you like working at id?

Root: Oh, it's great! id is such a small team -- I mean, Fred [Nilsson] used to do all the animations by himself, until they hired James Huska. Typically a triple-A game like id's would have 10-20 animators. It's a testament to Fred and James, to their talent, that those two guys could pull it off. I mean, the whole id team is only 20 guys. [laughs]

GameSpy: Because it's a small team, is it important that you all get along?

Root: I think so. We all go to lunch together, and hang out after work. We go to movies or whatever. It's a real family atmosphere. It's great, because it's easier to get everyone on the same page about the direction of a project. We kind of work via telepathy. We don't have the hierarchy like you'd find at a larger company. Because it's a small team, anyone can come up with a cool idea and sell it to the team and see it come to life.

Trivia Answers:DOOM takes place on Phobos. The shareware version of the game was released in December 1993, while the full version followed in 1994.